How demonetisation has dealt a body blow to the big fat Indian wedding

Along with wedding parties, also wailing are vendors who make the big fat wedding possible. People are renegotiating rates and even rescheduling dates.Rajiv Singh | ET Bureau | December 19, 2016, 08:36 IST

For Ankur Gupta, it was that one big day, one grand moment, that he had been waiting for the past 25 years: the marriage of his daughter. “I always wanted a fairytale wedding for my princess,” says the garment manufacturer and exporter in Pitampura, a north-west district of Delhi.

Gupta, 60, did all that he could to make the day — November 28 — memorable: top-notch decorators were roped in to install a Mughal-themed makeshift palace at the wedding venue, an open park; décor based on rose petals was selected for his multi-storeyed bungalow; caterers were asked to be as lavish as possible in their offerings, including Italian and Mediterranean dishes; and a Bollywood-styled dance party was planned with the event management firm promising to fly down some celebrities and choreographers from Mumbai. A conservative estimate for the cost of the entire shindig: Rs 7 crore.

“Among baniyas (a business community), marriage is as much about celebration as about flaunt has to be ostentatious,” asserts Gupta, adding that over 40% of the payments had been made, and jewellery worth Rs 1 crore had been purchased over months.

“The top three overseas wedding destinations — Thailand, Bali and Maldives — have turned into a ghost areas” Sachin Singhal(In Pic) cofounder and CEO of BandBaajaa.com, a wedding portal.

Gupta’s dreams came crashing down to terra firma on the night of November 8, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The new rules meant that Gupta could only take out Rs 50,000 every week from his current account, Rs 24,000 per week from his savings account, and a maximum of Rs 2.5 lakh for the marriage.

“Big marriages were supposed to be extravagant. Demonetisation has killed the extravagance” Mohit Dutta(In Pic) Business associate, XO Catering By Design

The option of borrowing from his friends in the business community was ruled out as nobody had ‘new’ cash! “I didn’t know how to react,” he recalls. While some vendors refused to accept cheques, others declined payment in old currency, which Gupta had salted away — he insists they were savings — in plenty.

“Demonetisation ruined my daughter’s wedding,” he rues. Eventually, the celebrations had to be scaled down to roughly a fifth of the original budget.

“From Band, baaja, baarat it has now come down to band bajgaya. Things are in terrible shape” Prerana Saxena(In Pic) CEO, Theme Weavers, a high-end wedding planner specialising in experiential weddings.

Damp Squibs Gupta is not the only one bemoaning his misfortune. The big fat Indian wedding has lost its flab, with demonetisation delivering a sucker punch to the wedding industry, estimated to be worth Rs 1 lakh crore per year, and growing annually at 25-30%. At the upper end, families have been known to spend Rs 10 crore, some 80% of those transactions in cash.No longer. Wedding budgets have been massively slashed, overseas wedding destinations like Thailand and Bali have turned into ghost areas, says Sachin Singhal, cofounder and CEO of BandBaajaa.com, a wedding portal. “It’s a massive hit for the industry. It’s unprecedented,” he adds. Over 40 km from Pitampura, Rajdeep Dahiya in Gurgaon attests to the pandemonium.

A luxury car dealer, Dahiya had meticulously planned a monstrous wedding party for his son in Thailand on November 20. While Dahiya, with his 500 guests, was supposed to land in Thailand on November 15, the bride’s family was expected to be there a few days earlier to ensure it had enough time to shop. All hell broke loose on the morning of November 9.

Dahiya had to cancel the overseas wedding, all advances made by him — over Rs 3 crore — had to be forfeited, and the marriage was solemnised back in Haryana at a small farmhouse.

Along with wedding parties, also wailing all the way to the bank are vendors who make the big fat wedding possible.

“The worst hit are the wedding planners,” says Singhal of BandBaajaa. Thailand, he points out, hosts over 800 Indian marriages every year. Other top wedding destination like Bali, Maldives, Mauritius and Istanbul — which used to be swarmed with wedding parties from India — have to now contend with a trickle.

Back in India, the theme and interior decoration industry involved in installing palatial sets has been dealt a body blow. “Things are in terrible shape. From band, baaja and baarat, it has now come down to band baj gaya,” avers Prerana Saxena, CEO of Theme Weavers, a high-end wedding planner specialising in experiential weddings.

People are renegotiating rates, pleading to pay in older currencies and even rescheduling wedding dates. However, Saxena maintains that it’s not only about downsizing, but also about emotions.

“When one is forced to compromise on décor and interiors, it leaves emotional scars,” she says.

In Kolkata, emotions are running high for a slightly different reason. Early this month, Shweta Sen was terribly hassled as she was not able to find a suitable rohu or hilsa fish. It is a tradition in the family of Sen — whose nephew was set to get married — to gift these fish (apart from the usual jewellery and saris) dressed up in wedding finery. Also Read: How Delhi lost a working day to demonetisation

The fish, sent either from the bride or groom’s family, is meant for a lavish feast, and is an integral part of the festivities. Sen scampered to all the major fish centres in south Kolkata — Gariahat, Jadavpur and Lake Market.

Fish prices had shot up — a hilsa was going for Rs 2,000 per kg — but Sen’s problem wasn’t the price tag but that fish markets were used to dealing with only cash.

“They don’t have cashless transactions yet,” she says wryly. Still on food — but not of the gifting kind — the catering industry, where food cost per plate ranges anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 25,000, has taken a hit by an estimated 70% as families trim the food menu, clip the guest list and merge multiple functions into one.

In fact, a few had little choice but to cancel the wedding reception itself. Consider Sameer Aggarwal in Delhi, who got married on November 11 and had planned a wedding bash for over 700 guests in a huge banquet hall.

The caterer was handed over an elaborate menu, including multiple counters for mocktail and appetisers, and a 40% advance was paid. On the morning of November 9, Aggarwal became one of the victims of collateral damage in Modi’s surgical strike. The caterer refused to take the remaining amount in cheque, and Aggarwal didn’t have cash — old or new — to fork out. Result: the party had to be cancelled.

Left in the LurchIt’s not always the caterer who spoils the party, though. Ask Mohit Dutta, business associate at XO Catering By Design, a celebrity catering firm that served food at Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor’s wedding reception. Dutta got the shock of his life when he got a call from one of his clients on the morning of November 9, informing him that all wedding functions have been cancelled, and the wedding is now being shifted to a gurudwara.

Meantime, the designer apparel wear industry is grappling with a slightly less predictable problem. “It’s not the bridal collection but trousseau that is hit,” says Varija Bajaj, a high-end bridal fashion designer. While the dress for bride and groom has not seen any cut, as orders are placed a few months in advance, what has hit the designers is the absence of last-minute shopping by guests attending weddings.

Bajaj has been forced to cancel over 40 wedding exhibitions over the past 40 days; the same time last season, he was doing 25 in a month! For designers, payments to raw material suppliers and labour, who do not accept cheque or card, are another headache.“Not bridal collection but trousseau has got hit. Even guests have little to spend” Varija Bajaj(In Pic) a high-end bridal fashion designer.

Designers are withdrawing money from their account and paying in cash, says Bajaj, who has been camping in Surat since last two weeks to scout for raw materials. “The real pinch will be felt in January and February if there is no rebound in demand,” she adds. The jewellery industry too has been left in the lurch.

Akassh K Aggarwal, a jewellery designer in Delhi, points out that those getting married in November and December, had already made most of jewellery purchases before demonetisation. The problem, then? It’s the gifting of jewellery — ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 5 crore — that has suddenly stopped. “Gifting jewellery was at the heart of the fat wedding. Now, this heart has stopped beating,” he says, adding that demonetisation has hit this segment by as much as 90%.So will demonetisation result in ostentatious wedding ceremonies becoming a thing of the past? Perhaps not. “I don’t think it has led to a great difference in trimming the big fat Indian wedding,” says Ranjana Kumari, director of Centre for Social Research.

The glitz, for which the bride’s parents typically pays, including dowry, has not faded. Societal values regarding expenditure on weddings have to change, and demonetisation can’t bring about that change, she adds.

Wedding planners, for their part, are drawing some positives from demonetisation. Though the business has taken a hit, it is a temporary dip, says, Rubina Sahni, cofounder of Artisan, a high-end wedding planning company in Delhi. In the long run, she adds, it would help streamline the industry and make it more organised.

Sahni explains how: The transactions, either advance or final payments, will now be done by cheque or wire transfers and the expectations of the clients will have to be documented and delivered. There will also be little scope for overlapping and cancellation of venues unscrupulously by fly-by-night operators.

This would ensure that only serious and efficient players remain in the business and the industry becomes competitive, which will help consumers. “So, this is definitely a bitter pill with the greatest cure,” she says. Not all brides, grooms and their families will agree, however, that this was the pill the doctor ordered.

When Notebandi Paid OffWhen PM Narendra Modi announced the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on the night of November 8, he found support from an unexpected quarter: a father who was getting his daughter married in 10 days.

Rahul Singhal, a ceramic tile dealer in Punjabi Bagh, west Delhi, had stretched himself financially to ensure that the wedding on November 18 could be a ‘royal affair’ as per the diktat of his daughter’s to be inlaws. Though the businessman had already spent Rs 4 crore, he was being pestered to spend another crore or so in arranging dancers and entertainers from Bollywood.

Another unexpected demand that had cropped up just two weeks before the wedding was to gift over 100 luxury watches to special guests from the groom’s side. “I had pleaded my inability to spend more,” recalls Singhal. November 8 put an end to his wedding worries. “Modi saved me. I ran out of cash and the groom’s familycould’t do much about it,” he grins.

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